Wild Country

by Anne Bishop

  “Thanks for all your help today, with Kane . . . and everything.”

  “I’m glad I was here to help. Keep working with Mel, and remember to pay attention to what he’s telling you.” He smiled at her. “I got your letter.”

  “How could you? I just mailed it this morning, and you haven’t been home yet.”

  He laughed. “When I went to the post office to pick up the mail for my ranch, the Skye Ranch, and Prairie Gold, Isobel Sanguinati handed it to me. Special delivery.”

  “I have a weakness for stationery.”

  Tobias stepped closer. “Then I’ll look forward to receiving more letters.” And damn if his mother hadn’t been right about the anticipation of receiving a letter being its own kind of pleasure.

  He kissed her. A soft kiss. A warm kiss that both asked a question and gave an answer.

  “Am I the only one feeling this spark?” he whispered.

  “No, but . . .”

  He pressed a finger lightly against her lips. “No need to be going into the ‘buts.’ Courting has to be a little different out here. Besides, you’re going to write me letters when I can’t come up to town.”

  “Are you going to write to me too?”

  “I just might.” He smiled—and heard a Wolfish huff right behind him. “Guess I’d better go.”

  He watched Jana go into her house and close the door. Then he turned to look at Virgil. Big damn mother of a Wolf and not someone he wanted to cross.

  “You have any objections to me courting her?” he asked.

  Virgil trotted up the street and leaped into the bed of the pickup—and Tobias had a feeling the Wolf was laughing at him for taking on the wolverine.

  * * *

  * * *

  Parlan Blackstone stared at Dalton and Lawry. “You went to an occupied ranch when there are so many abandoned places in this region? By all the dark gods, what were you thinking? Were you thinking?”

  “Charlie Webb and Sweeney Cooke had scouted the place.” Lawry glanced at Judd McCall instead of Parlan as he stumbled to explain. “They claimed there was no one in the house just before first light, that the owners and ranch hands were all out doing chores before breakfast and we’d have a clean run of the house. And they said the doors were left open. The way stations we’d checked had already been cleaned out of anything useful, and what passed for towns were too small for us to try to sell off anything we’d acquired.”

  “Should have been simple, Pa,” Dalton said.

  Judd McCall smiled at Dalton and Lawry. “Should have been.”

  “Should have been.” Lawry sounded angry and bitter.

  Good. If Lawry tried to shrug it off, he might “accidentally” fall on Judd’s knife, and that could attract attention to the whole clan. This fiasco had already attracted enough attention.

  “Would have been if a girl hadn’t been in the kitchen and if Sweeney was capable of keeping his cock behind his zipper,” Lawry continued. “Gods, I swear, Parlan, that man isn’t right in the head whenever he sees a female. He was supposed to grab a couple of sacks of food and get out. Instead . . .”

  Lawry stopped talking.

  “Did the girl see anyone besides Sweeney?” Parlan asked. He listened to the clock tick, tick, tick.

  “She saw me,” Dalton finally said. “But only for a second. I’m not sure she saw much. She was on her knees and Sweeney was in front of her and I was in the doorway for just a second to tell Sweeney we had to get out. Then I went out the front door and me and Uncle Lawry drove away.”

  “Dalton told me no names were used,” Lawry said. “Even if the girl got a glimpse of him, she doesn’t know who he is.”

  “You act like we don’t sense things, get feelings about when a deck is stacked against us and we need to walk away,” Parlan said.

  “Dalton did his part,” Lawry said heatedly. “He came away with some nice bits of jewelry and a stack of cash in a cashbox that was right out in the open. Something warned them, something Sweeney and Charlie missed.”

  Parlan stared at his son. “Did you handle those nice bits of jewelry?”

  Dalton returned his father’s stare, but he paled. “That was just a con, the distraction to give Uncle Lawry time to work.”

  No, it wasn’t. Maybe Dalton resented his sister having that odd bit of talent when he didn’t and that’s why the boy had always dismissed it as nonsense. How could a gemstone bring good fortune or leave someone open to misfortune? Except it wasn’t the stone itself. Never the stone itself. It was a particular stone matched with a particular person that seemed to do the impossible.

  So the question was, did the ranch have a warning system that Sweeney and Charlie missed when they cased the place, or had their luck turned the moment Dalton grabbed some jewelry that had stones that created opportunities for misfortune?

  Better for the family if everyone believed the trouble was because of Sweeney Cooke and Charlie Webb.

  “We need to be able to settle for a few days in each place before we pick up and move on,” Parlan said. “We need that more now than we ever have before. Journeys from East Coast to West Coast aren’t possible anymore. We can’t even get out of this damn region. So we can’t put the clan at risk because Sweeney Cooke thinks with his dick.”

  “Where are Sweeney and Charlie?” Judd asked.

  Dalton shrugged. “Charlie had pulled up near the back door of the house, so Sweeney should have gone out that way.”

  “I heard gunshots when we were driving away,” Lawry said. “Tire could have been blown out—or one of them could have been shot.”

  “If one of them was shot and they managed to get away, they’ll have to hide or find a town that still has a doctor,” Judd said. “Either way, I think Dalton and Lawry need to lay low for a couple of days while I see what I can find out.”

  “You good with that, Lawry?” Parlan asked.

  Lawry nodded. “Nobody saw me, and I doubt they can identify Dalton, so finding a place to squat to avoid running into Charlie and Sweeney and have someone connect us to them is the best we can do right now.”

  “You have mobile phones that work?”

  “Yeah. Mostly. You lose the signal a lot when you get away from the towns, such as they are.”

  “Try to find a place where you can check in daily.”

  Parlan waited until Lawry and Dalton left his private car. Then he looked at Judd.

  “We’re not the only ones trapped inside borders,” Judd said. “Been hearing about plenty of the boys who are finding it hard to adjust since that damn war.”

  The boys. Judd’s code name for men who preferred to make a living on the wrong side of the law. Outlaws. Bank robbers and cattle rustlers. Gamblers and thieves. Killers.

  “Used to be a man would settle in a town,” Parlan said. “He’d buy a house, have a wife and children, go to the Universal Temple on Earthday same as the rest of his neighbors. He didn’t dirty his own nest. He never did anything in that town that gave his neighbors a reason to think he was anything less than respectable. And what he did outside that town . . . That was nobody’s business but his.”

  “You’re thinking it’s time to play the respectable con again?” Judd asked.

  Parlan nodded. “Open a business, settle down. It will take a few years for the human towns to recover.”

  “If they recover.”

  Parlan nodded again. That was the hard truth. The towns he’d seen so far in this region were bleak prospects for a man like himself. Yes, it was time to find a place where the clan could settle down for a few years. More to the point, he was heading for the only place where they should be able to slip in with the rest of the newcomers.

  “If we settle down to play the respectable con, Cooke and Webb are going to be a problem,” he said.

  “They’re already a problem,” Judd replied.

/>   “Can you take care of it?”

  Judd smiled. “It’ll be a pleasure.”

  CHAPTER 23

  Sunsday, Messis 21

  After an early breakfast at the hotel, Jana and Tobias crossed the street and strolled across the square. Alone, she would have taken the long way around by walking on the streets, not wanting to see the bloodstained grass or have her breath catch as she passed the spot where she’d shot the dogs. But Tobias had to get back to the Prairie Gold ranch and wasn’t sure when he’d be able to return to Bennett. He had a responsibility not just to the ranch but to the whole Intuit community, since the ranch was the main source of meat for Prairie Gold.

  “Ah . . . ,” Tobias said.

  Jana stared at the three Wolves—and her puppy—tearing into . . . “I left her in her crate. What’s she doing out here? And what is that?”

  “Pronghorn antelope,” Tobias replied.

  “She can’t eat that. Rusty can’t eat that.”

  “Actually . . .”

  Virgil, Kane, and John stopped tearing off chunks of meat and looked at her like she was nuts. Rusty, hearing her voice, grabbed the severed lower half of a hind leg and carried it to where Jana stood, wagging her tail as she dropped the present on Jana’s boot.

  Tobias sounded like he had something stuck in his throat, but he said in a low voice, “Praise her.”

  She didn’t want to praise the puppy. She didn’t want to find other kinds of presents—and some that might not be altogether dead—being dropped on her foot because she had reinforced this behavior. But a pack shared the meat, and since she wasn’t going to go down on her hands and knees and put her face in the antelope, growling at Virgil in order to claim her share, she praised Rusty and gave Virgil a look that should have singed fur.

  Crouching, she wrapped a hand around the leg just above the hoof—and wished she’d eaten oatmeal instead of steak and eggs that morning, since oatmeal wouldn’t have scampered around the Elder Hills before becoming someone’s meal.

  “Since she’s not used to it, it’s probably best not to give the pup too much fresh meat at one time,” Tobias said in a conversational tone, looking at the Wolves. “And if you’re planning to do more than sleep for a few hours, you all might not want to pack in too much meat either. Of course, you’d know better than me how your human form reacts to a full Wolf belly.”

  John and Virgil stopped eating. Kane, having successfully yanked off part of the meaty rib cage, hobbled a few feet away and settled down with his prize.

  After giving the pronghorn a wistful look, Virgil trotted toward the sheriff’s office while John headed in the opposite direction toward the bookstore.

  “With me, Rusty,” Jana said, waving the pronghorn leg when the pup started to follow Virgil. “With me.” She indulged Rusty in a vigorous game of tug, which ended when Rusty pulled some hide off the leg and Jana, no longer having the resistance, landed on her butt.

  “Need a hand, Deputy?” Tobias held out his hand.

  “Don’t you laugh.”

  “Not laughing. No, ma’am.”

  Uh-huh.

  She accepted the hand up, and the three of them walked to the sheriff’s office.

  “Could Virgil have killed that animal?” Jana asked.

  “Probably. He’s big enough and has the speed. But I doubt he’d have dragged it all the way back to the town square. If he’d been hunting last night in the hills—which would be unusual since regular wolves don’t tend to hunt at night, and from what I know of them, the Wolfgard don’t either—Virgil would have brought it to their house if he’d moved it from the kill sight.” Tobias stopped on the sidewalk in front of the sheriff’s office. “I don’t think the Wolfgard killed that pronghorn. Neither did the Panther who lives in town. None of them have had time to be out hunting for fresh meat. They’ve been making do with the supplies of fresh or frozen meat from all the houses, same as the humans here.”

  “Who would kill something and then leave it for . . .” Jana stopped when she noticed all the birds heading for the carcass. Eagles, Hawks, Ravens, Crows. Even some of the Owls. Fresh meat. The kind of meat the terra indigene were used to hunting and eating.

  Saul Panthergard, in his Cougar form, trotted up to the kill. Kane snarled, but Jana thought that it was for form’s sake. The birds fluttered and resettled, leaving Saul as the sole possessor of the hindquarters.

  “Elders,” Jana whispered.

  Tobias nodded. “That would be my guess. Kane’s hurt and Virgil’s keeping watch to make sure all the pesky humans behave. Someone needs to supply meat for the pack.”

  And putting the carcass in the square allowed all the Others to have a piece since none of them had more right to the meat than the rest.

  Jana waved the pronghorn leg, which Rusty took as an invitation to play. Holding it higher than the pup could jump, she said, “What am I supposed to do with this?”

  “I’m guessing you don’t want to put it in the office refrigerator.”

  “You guess right. For one thing, it’s an under-the-counter fridge—too small to hold this. For another thing . . .” Jana looked at the leg. “It still has fur and skin . . . and a hoof.”

  “I’ll see if I can locate an ice chest and some ice. Or I can take it with me and return it to the rest of the kill if that’s what you want.”

  “That would be better.”

  Tobias tipped his hat back. “We feed the ranch dogs fresh meat all the time. It won’t hurt Rusty. In fact, it will be good for her—and it will be easier on you to feed her meat as one of her meals than fighting with Virgil every time there’s fresh meat. She’s pack, darlin’, and she’s furry. He might be able to wrap his mind around you not wanting to gnaw on meat that’s still on the hoof, but not providing food for a pup?” He shook his head. “One way or another, the Wolves will feed her. The only way for you to keep control of what she eats is if she gets most of her meals from you.”

  She handed him the pronghorn leg. “I have to get to work.”

  “Me too.” He smiled. “Too much of an audience for a good-bye kiss?”

  Jana looked across the street. Everything with fur or feathers looked back at her. Watching her and Tobias. If she kissed Tobias in full view of everyone, Saul might keep it to himself, not seeing anything of interest. Kane might keep it to himself. Same with the Hawks and Eagles and Owls. But the Crows and Ravens? Everyone would know about a kiss before the breakfast dishes were cleared. And that was assuming the “news” didn’t travel outside Bennett.

  “Definitely too much audience,” she replied.

  The smile he gave her had enough heat to produce a nice little flutter. She wasn’t sure what to do about the flutter, but it gave her a boost of confidence before she walked into the office and had to deal with a growly boss.

  * * *

  * * *

  Tolya Sanguinati studied the two maps. One was a large map of the Midwest Region as it had been a few months ago. Even before the Elders and Elementals had raged across the continent, the human-controlled towns had been sparse in this region. There were way stations indicated on the map—Carter’s Way, Silver Way, Shooting Star Way. Those places were little more than a stop for the freight and passenger trains and had a few dozen people living there at best. Other places were small Intuit or human communities that had a major roadway running through them.

  And some of the more isolated places were ghost towns now, reclaimed by the terra indigene.

  Many of those places—maybe all of those places—depended on Bennett’s survival in one way or another.

  Tolya shook his head. Those other places weren’t his problem. Even if he had the outlandish idea that he should take some responsibility for them, he couldn’t do it, because he had enough problems right here.

  Putting the regional map aside, he considered the map of the town and the red lines he
’d drawn last night after Air arrived at his house and told him the Elders wanted to see him.

  What had stood before him . . . Not their true form. Not even the animal forms he suspected had been taken by their ancestors a very long time ago. No, these Elders had walked on two legs, but they hadn’t been human in any other way. They were some of the nightmares that had wiped out the humans who had previously lived in Bennett. And they had summoned him to the edge of the Elder Hills to deliver a message: Enough.

  In his smoke form, he had followed them through the streets of the town. Their claws scarred utility poles and post office boxes. By his reckoning, they were marking boundaries two streets beyond what he and Virgil had currently indicated as the town lines. He didn’t know if they understood the purpose of some of the buildings that were now restored to the official part of the town, including Bennett’s small hospital and a shopping center, but by the time the sun began to rise and people began to stir to prepare for the workday, he knew where the lines had literally been drawn.

  Because the two official salvage companies had wisely offered jobs to any terra indigene who had expressed interest, they would be allowed to forage beyond the town line during the day. But those houses were now potential dens for the Others. Humans who tried to squat in any of those places would become meat.

  One of the Elders left an animal in the town square to feed the terra indigene who were working with the humans. Today it was four-legged prey. Tolya had no doubt that, should humans become careless, the prey left in the square the next time might be someone the humans recognized.

  That was one of the problems now. The terra indigene had been the dominant predators since the world had been new, adapting and learning the forms of the hunters around them as they changed with the world, but the Sanguinati were the only branch that had adapted to be urban predators who hunted humans as their preferred prey. That worked in the larger human-controlled towns that had a Courtyard. Or it had before the Elders had made being out after dark a form of suicide. The Sanguinati had hunted in the dark—smoke hiding in the shadows of an alleyway, taking nothing but blood from an unwary passerby; a shadowy lover in a dimly lit bar, exchanging an evening of romance—and sometimes even sex—for a fresh liquid meal.